name
of the author of "The Origin of Species" has been especially attached,
as everyone knows, to the doctrines of "natural selection" and of
"struggle for existence," completed by the notion of "individual
variation." These doctrines were turned to account by very different
schools of social philosophy. Pessimistic and optimistic, aristocratic
and democratic, individualistic and socialistic systems were to war
with each other for years by casting scraps of Darwinism at each other's
heads.

It was the spectacle of human contrivance that suggested to Darwin
his conception of natural selection. It was in studying the methods of
pigeon breeders that he divined the processes by which nature, in the
absence of design, obtains analogous results in the differentiation
of types. As soon as the importance of artificial selection in the
transformation of species of animals was understood, reflection
naturally turned to the human species, and the question arose, How far
do men observe, in connection with themselves, those laws of which they
make practical application in the case of animals? Here we come upon one
of the ideas which guided the researches of Galton, Darwin's cousin. The
author of "Inquiries into Human Faculty and its Development" ("Inquiries
into Human Faculty", pages 1, 2, 3 sq., London, 1883.), has often
expressed his surprise that, considering all the precautions taken,
for example, in the breeding of horses, none whatever are taken in the
breeding of the human species. It seems to be forgotten that the species
suffers when the "fittest" are not able to perpetuate their type.
Ritchie, in his "Darwinism and Politics" ("Darwinism and Politics" pages
9, 22, London, 1889.) reminds us of Darwin's remark that the institution
of the peerage might be defended on the ground that peers, owing to the
prestige they enjoy, are enabled to select as wives "the most beautiful
and charming women out of the lower ranks." ("Life and Letters of
Charles Darwin", II. page 385.) But, says Galton, it is as often as not
"heiresses" that they pick out, and birth statistics seem to show that
these are either less robust or less fecund than others. The truth is
that considerations continue to preside over marriage which are entirely
foreign to the improvement of type, much as this is a condition of
general progress. Hence the importance of completing Odin's and De
Candolle's statistics which are designed to show how characters are
incorpora